Malnourished Kitten

Hi everyone,
My Mom found a kitten wandering in her neighborhood. She was malnourished and had severe diarrhea and seeing as she has two not so cat friendly schnauzers. So, I took her into my home to get healthy and fatten her up. What I've done so far: the first night I had her I wiped her down, put some Vaseline on her very raw little butt and encouraged her to eat and drink, and surprisingly watched her get the litter box thing down first try then I took her to the vet first thing the next morning and had her tested for everything under the sun and a general overall check. She had slight abnormal bacteria in her fecal test but no worms and no feline leukemia. The prescribed Albon for the bacteria and as a bonus feature the med will treat coccidia just in case. She said that kitten was about 8 weeks and a whopping 1 pound. I've gotten her some kitten food that's she's doing well on and I add a bit of KMR mixed in. We are on day two of ten on the antibiotic and the diarrhea has improved a great deal.
Now after that novel of a back story I have a few questions.
Should I give her a bath? I've been wiping the feces off he butt with a wash cloth and warm soapy water but she's got very long hair and it's not cutting it. My worry is her being such a low weight and her potentially getting chilled.
Can I do anything more to help with weight gain?
She's very clingy. Follows me everywhere I go and squalls when she can't see me but she will not play. And mostly sits or sleeps or runs from one side of the house to the other. I have tried everything to get her to play. And she won't. Do you think this is a learned behavior that she didn't get a chance to observe or should I be worried that she's not as energetic and feeling as well as I think she is?
Again sorry about the super long post.

Hi

It is great that you have rescued this kitten. Also great the way you took her to a vet right away.

If she is 8 weeks old and only weighing one pound then she is about 1/2 of what she should weigh. So, yes very thin.

How long have you had the kitten now? I know you said that the albon is on it's second day.

Kittens play allot. They play hard and sleep harder. If they are frightened they don't play or if they don't feel well. They also won't play when their environment changes until they get more familiar with their surroundings.

I would wait another day, provided the kitten is eating, drinking, using the litter pan normally with normal bm and urine. Make sure there is no sneezing, coughing or breathing hard. The diarrhea should be resolved by now. Make sure the kitten has a safe place to go when kitty wants to remove him or herself from interaction with people. A cardboard box works great. Don't push to play right now. Let kitty reserve energy and get to a good weight first. But if kitty is lethargic and looks to not feel well, definitely call your vet for advice.

As for the bath, I would not give a bath right now. You can use unscented baby wipes but be careful to not irritate the skin to much. When you bath an adult healthy cat they get cold. A malnourished kitten getting a bath is a recipe for disaster. Does the kitten have fleas? Did the vet check? If she or he has fleas then that will have to be addressed but not with a bath. No store brand products either as they are not safe to use.

So, let me know.

As for gaining weight, the best way is to feed a quality kitten food, canned is preferred, and always fresh water. I wouldn't be giving the KMR especially with the diarrhea, but did you say the vet recommended it? If so, I don't want to tell you not to do what your vet advised because I haven't seen your kitten, they have. You can do multiple small feedings. The vet should have given you a calorie amount for your kitten to consume in a day and then you should know what is in the food you are feeding. Often with kittens provided they are not piggies, I will just make sure they always have food available.

And I would suggest the minimum number of feedings per day at 3, but you could actually go up to 5, and give her all she wants to eat at every meal, supplemented with a little Nutrical (pet stores), but controlling her diarrhea is equally important in weight gain and health, so gentle foods.

Today is day three of her being with me. She's not shy or skittish. And she doesn't like being left alone. She follows me everywhere. She's eating great. She eats all throughout the day because I have her bowl of food down for her anytime she wants to eat its available.
She doesn't have any fleas, which is a blessing.
I was giving her KMR the first night after calling the vet. She wouldn't eat anything and the vet told me to try mix a tiny bit in with her food. Which worked really well so the next day when I changed her old food to the new food she gobbled it up without the KMR.
This morning she has a bit of a runny eye. But she's not congested, wheezy, or sneezing. The vet didn't give me a calorie amount to feed her each day. She just told me to encourage her to eat whenever I could.

She's definitely getting stronger. The past two times she's gotten her albon dose she's say there obligingly and swallowed it down. Today, she went nuts when I gave it to her. And when I was done she flew through the house like I had lit her tail on fire.

Th reason I wanted to bath her is because she's got feces and dirt caked in her very long fur around her tail an bottom. And she's got raw spots all around the same area. The matted places keep causing the fur to pull out which causes more raw spots. And will all that filth around the raw spots I'm worried they won't heal and will get infected.

She is a beauty. I found wipes at Petsmart and soap you don't need to rinse off. No age on the wipes but the soap said 8 weeks I believe. Is there anyway you can trim her bum or worst areas. Not sure if it would help.

I hope you do updates.

Most of her hair in the area is already gone or only attached by the matted clump stuck to her skin. The baby wipes that I tried (their the natural, unscented wipes) aren't working well since her fur is long and very tangled and matted. I've been applying triple antibiotic ointment and that's helped a great deal. The swelling and redness has gone down a lot. But under these clumps are raw spots and I can't get any medicine to them.

Ok so good news! There is a good chance the eyes will get worse and need drops or ointment and it may progress to sneezing and congestion too so keep an eye out for changes ok.

Poor little girl. So glad you have her. I wonder if a warm little bath would help if she isn't too raw. Wrap her in a warm towel after. I hope she comes unmatted soon. She sounds like a keeper!

I think I've figured out the eye problem. I was wiping some of the goop out of the her face and saw that she had one of her hairs stuck in there. I could get it without have to touch her eye. And as soon as I got it out she was opening her eye again and blinking. A lot of clear "tears" came out and the gooey yucky stuff was washed away. I'll still keep an eye because I know its common for stray to get nasty eye infections.
So should I give her a bath or not? I really only need to put water on her leg, tail, and butt area. I wouldn't need to get her completely wet.
She doesn't like wet food for some reason won't touch it. Is there any decent dry food to pudge her up?
She played for about 30 seconds with a strand of my hair so it seems she may be pepping up!

Can you take her to your vet and have the hair around her leg, tail, and butt area trimmed? Considering her condition, I'd advise against a bath until she's a little bigger and stronger.

You may have to bath just that part of her.  You will probably still have to cut off some fur.  If you can have her in a small closed bathroom that is warm that would be best.  

All the fur inthe affected area is clumped so tightly to the skin I wouldn't be able to safely trim it. The vet would be able to remove it but I feel that it would be unnecessary pain if I could just bathe her to get it off of her. I don't know what I should do because some people are saying to wait that the cold is too risky and others are saying to bathe her because the infection is risky. Maybe just wait until tomorrow and see if her energy improves and I'll ask the vet if she could bathe her there. Where they're more knowledgeable on ways to keep her warm during the process?

Got it.

With extreme caution, I once bathed a sick and weak cat. Even though it was summer, I used a space heater to heat the room and kept him there until he was dry and then some to ensure he wouldn't chill. I would just be very careful to wash only the dirty area and keep the kitten very warm, warm to the point you are uncomfortable.

She's very cute, by the way.

The first night I had her I kept the bathroom (where she sleeps) very warm. Meaning I spent the night at a stifling 78 degrees. So I'm no stranger to sacrificing my comfort. Haha. I have central heat so it would be easy to heat up the bathroom very quickly. I think I'll try giving her a warm bath in a very warm bathroom and wrap her in a fresh out of the dryer towel. First sign she's too cold I'll crank the heat.

I have her a bath and it went wonderfully. I blow dried her low heat, low blow. She's flopped on her back so I would blow dry her tummy. I got all of the matted spots out and put some ointment on the raw spots. Which there were much less spots than I thought there would be and she's almost completely healed in the other ones. I'm so happy that she's doing well. She's been lucky compared to some strays her age.

oakley9898 said:

I have her a bath and it went wonderfully. I blow dried her low heat, low blow. She's flopped on her back so I would blow dry her tummy. I got all of the matted spots out and put some ointment on the raw spots. Which there were much less spots than I thought there would be and she's almost completely healed in the other ones. I'm so happy that she's doing well. She's been lucky compared to some strays her age.

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Yay!!

I am so glad.  She is a cutie.  It also sounds like she is a healthy survivor, it's amazing how some kittens can snap right out of a horrible start in life.